Mozes breekt de tafelen der wet (tweede deel) 1590

Andrea Andreani created this chiaroscuro woodcut of Moses destroying the tablets somewhere around the turn of the 17th century. Woodcuts like this one were relatively cheap to produce, so prints could circulate widely. Andreani made this print in Italy, a place and time in which the Catholic Church was a major patron of the arts. Images from the Bible were thus very popular, but in this print, Moses is shown destroying the symbols of divine law. Andreani’s print thus seems to represent the tension between religious law and human fallibility. Look at how Andreani depicts the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf. As historians, we would want to investigate the social and political contexts in which this print circulated. We might ask, for example, what different audiences would have made of this dramatic scene. Art is always contingent on the circumstances of its making.